accepted that
they were. But, Hilda, they are not. Wickedness is not wicked in the way
that I was told it was wicked, and what I was told was salvation is not
the salvation men and women want. I have been playing in a fool's
paradise all these years, and I've got outside the gate. I am distressed
and terrified, I think, but underneath it all I am very glad....

"You will say, 'What are you going to do?' and I can only reply, I don't
know. I'm not going to make any vast change, if you mean that. A padre I
am, and a padre I shall stay for the war at least, and none of us can see
beyond that at present. But what I do mean to do is just this: I mean to
try and get down to reality myself and try to weigh it up. I am going to
eat and drink with publicans and sinners; maybe I shall find my Master
still there."

Peter stopped and looked up. Langton was stretched out in a chair beside
him, reading a novel, a pipe in his mouth. Moved by an impulse, he
interrupted him.

"Old man," he said, "I want you to let me read you a bit of this letter.
It's to my girl, but there's nothing rotten in reading it. May I?"

Langton did not move. "Carry on," he said shortly.

Peter finished and put down the sheet. The other smoked placidly and said
nothing. "Well?" demanded Peter impatiently.

"I should cut out that last sentence," pronounced the judge.

"Why? It's true."

"Maybe, but it isn't pretty."

"Langton," burst out Peter, "I'm sick of prettinesses! I've been stuffed
up with them all my life, and so has she. I want to break with them."

"Very likely, and I don't say that it won't be the best thing for you to
try for a little to do so, but she hasn't been where you've been or seen
what you've seen. You can't expect her wholly to understand. And more
than that, maybe she is meant for prettinesses. After all, they're
pretty."

Peter stabbed the blotting-paper with his pen. "Then she isn't meant for
me," he said.

"I'm not so sure," said Langton. "I don't know that you've stuff enough
in you to get on without those same prettinesses yourself. Most of us
haven't. And at any rate I wouldn't burn my boats yet awhile. You may
want to escape yet."

Peter considered this in silence. Then he drew the sheets to him and
added a few more words, folded the paper, put it in the envelope, and
stuck it down. "Come on," he said, "let's go and post this and have a
walk."

Langton got up and looked at him curiously, as he sometimes did. "Pete